Union College Athletics

Chris Collier was elevated to the head coaching role with the Union College cross country and track & field teams in July 2025 and begins his first season at the helm of the programs in 2025-26. Collier previously served as the top assistant coach for head coach Laura Nardelli for three seasons, helping to guide the cross country teams and distance groups to new heights.

The 2024 cross country season was arguably the most successful in program history, with the men's team regionally ranked in every week of the season and both the men (10th) and women (12th) finishing in the top-half of the field at the NCAA Mideast Regionals. Both teams had individual qualifiers for the NCAA Championships for the first time ever in the same season, and all three runners (Cat Dacey, Ben Neff and Ryan Russell) all earned USTFCCCA All-Region honors as well. Russell recorded the top-five 8K times in program history while Dacey outdid herself with the top-two spots in the 6K record books, giving her all of the program's top-10 times.

The 2024-25 track season saw more unprecedented success, with the men's and women's teams combining to break 16 program records. The distance crew provided many of those record-breaking performances, including in the women's indoor and outdoor 1500m, indoor mile and 5000m, and outdoor 3000m. The men's team capped its successful year by winning the 4x800 relay title at the AARTFC Championships, the first regional title in program history.

In his second year with the program, the Union cross country and track teams had tremendous success on the course, on the track and in the field during the 2023-24 season, setting multiple program records and seeing results that had not been achieved in decades.

The men's cross country team was regionally ranked by the USTFCCCA for much of the fall and placed eighth at the NCAA Mideast Regionals for its best regional finish in 40 years. Meanwhile, the women's team placed 11th at regionals for its best finish in over three decades. Individually, Cat Dacey set multiple program firsts for the women's team, becoming the first runner to earn All-Liberty League first-team and USTFCCCA All-Region recognition while earning the team's first individual qualification to the NCAA Cross Country Championships. The eight fastest 6K races in women's program history were run this season (including the top five by Dacey), while the men's team posted six of the top-nine fastest 8K times in program history this season as well.

The success continued moving to the track for both the indoor and outdoor seasons. The women's team saw 12 program records broken over the course of the year, led by USTFCCCA All-America honorable mention Ashley Sheldon, who became Union's second NCAA Indoor Championship qualifier in the high jump and broke five school records on the way to Liberty League Indoor Co-Rookie of the Year honors. Sheldon (indoor high jump) and Allison Malatesta (outdoor 3000 steeplechase) earned conference titles for Union as well. The men's team combined to break nine program records over the course of the season and won three Liberty League individual championships from Sam Ahern (indoor 60, indoor 200) and Jason Bois (outdoor 110 hurdles), who combined for three of the team's four USTFCCCA All-Region honors.

Collier finished his first season at Union in 2022-23 with the men's outdoor 4x800m relay team taking second place at the AARTFC Championships and breaking the school record in the process. The team saw two individuals and one relay team earn Liberty League honorable mentions for the women's track team, in addition to three USTFCCCA All-Region performers on the men's side between indoor and outdoor track and field. In cross country, sophomore Cat Dacey grabbed the program's first All-Liberty League honor since 2009 with an honorable mention. 

Collier spent seven seasons as a runner and coach at Michigan State University, running for five seasons (2011-16) for the Spartans' cross country and track & field teams and then working two years as a Graduate Assistant (2017-19). Collier earned a bachelor's degree in Secondary Social Studies Education and a master's degree in Teaching and Curriculum from Michigan State. 

A native of Delmar, N.Y., Collier most recently worked in the Schenectady area as a seventh grade teacher at Oneida Middle School.